Herodian's Roman
History

Herodian
(late second, first half third century): Greek historian, author of a History
of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius (table
of contents) in which he describes the reign of
Commodus (180-192), the Year of the Five Emperors (193), the age of the
Severan dynasty (211-235),
and the Year of the Six Emperors (238).

The translation was made by Edward C. Echols (Herodian of Antioch's History of
the Roman Empire, 1961 Berkeley and Los Angeles) and was
put online for the
first time by Roger Pearse (Tertullian.Org).
The version offered on these pages is hyperlinked and contains notes by
Jona Lendering.

1.11: Digression on the Mother of the gods

As
we have discovered by research, the
Romans are devoted to this goddess for the following reason - a
reason
which it seems worth while to relate here, since it is unknown to
some of the Greeks. They say that this statue of the goddess fell from
the sky; the exact material of the statue is not known, nor the
identity of the
artists who made it; in fact, it is not certain that the statue was the
work of human hands. Long ago it fell from the sky in Phrygia (the name
of the region where it fell is Pessinus, which received its name from
the fall of the heavenly statue [1]); the statue was discovered there.

As we learn from
other sources, a battle is said to have taken place there between Ilus
the Phrygian and Tantalus the Lydian. Some say it was a boundary
dispute; others, that it was concerned with Ganymede's kidnapping. The battle continued for a long time on even terms, and a large number
of men fell on both sides; this disaster gave the region its name. It
was there, so the story goes, that Ganymede was spirited away and
disappeared from mortals' view when his brother and lover tore him limb
from limb. After the youth's body vanished, his sufferings made him
immortal when Zeus spirited him away to heaven. The Phrygians of old
staged their revels in Pessinus, on the banks of the river Gallus, from
which the eunuch priests of Cybele derive their name.[2]

When Roman affairs
prospered, they say that an oracle prophesied that the empire would
endure and soar to greater heights if the goddess were brought from
Pessinus to Rome.[3] The Romans therefore sent an embassy to Phrygia and
asked for the statue; they easily got it by reminding the Phrygians of
their kinship and by recalling to them that Aeneas the Phrygian was the
ancestor of the Romans. The statue was carried aboard ship, but when
the vessel arrived at the mouth of the Tiber (the Romans use this as
their harbor) it came to a halt, stopped by divine power.

For a long time the Romans tried in every way to dislodge the ship, which was held
fast as if by a sand bar, but it refused to move until one of the
Vestal Virgins, who was charged with breaking her oath of chastity, was
led forward. The priestess, who was about to be put to death, begged
the people to submit her case to the goddess from Pessinus. She
unfastened the sash at her waist and attached it to the prow of the
ship, praying that if she were still virgin and pure the ship would
follow her.[4]

The
ship, secured to
her sash, followed her readily. The Romans were struck with awe both by
the manifestation of the goddess and by the piety of the maiden. Let
this suffice as an inquiry into the history of the goddess from
Pessinus, but it will prove a not unwelcome digression to those
unfamiliar with Roman affairs. After escaping Maternus' plot, Commodus
strengthened his personal bodyguard and seldom appeared in public. He
spent most of his time at his suburban estate and at the imperial
estates far from Rome, having given up his judicial and administrative
duties.